Spotlight: Witnessed through rare contemporary strips of imagery, today’s Middle East dynamics are pieced together. Director, Marta Houske, is a participant in the Archival Panel. She notes that filmmakers will enjoy some of the specific techniques employed in making this film. For example, hand cranked 100-year-old footage had to be adjusted to give the illusion of modern day film action in order to keep the consistent pacing of the film.

Crows of the Desert is the incredible true story of one man’s brave struggle to stay alive and help save the Armenian people from near extinction in the 20th Century’s first genocide. World War One engulfed the Middle East, as Lawrence of Arabia fought side by side with the Arabs against the Ottomans. In this chaos, our hero Levon risked his life to rescue thousands of scattered, destitute survivors of the Armenian Genocide. Extraordinarily rare film, photographs, and documents, gathered from global archives, reveal the terror and heroism of a century ago in the Syrian desert.

Thirty five musicians of the Armenian State Chamber Choir will pay a visit to the Bay Area in April. They will perform a highly-anticipated concert in Berkeley on April 14. In addition, they will be at St. Vartan on Sunday morning (April 15) to sing the divine liturgy. This is an opportunity that comes around only once in a lifetime. Join us and give them a warm and well-deserving welcome!

Synopsis: The establishment of Armenia as an independent nation-state
presented Armenian literature with important opportunities. It
facilitated the greater cross-pollination between the literary capital
of the diaspora and Armenia, most notably through the literary journals
Inknagir, Arteria, and Pakine. While authors in the diaspora wrote about
the death of Western Armenian, their work was simultaneously
reinvigorated by an additional, however modest, critical mass of
readers. Similarly, the collapse of the Soviet publishing machine marked
a turning-point for litterateurs in Armenia, who were pushed to reinvent
all aspects of the literary marketplace.

Although the diaspora and Armenia have maintained different literary
preoccupations throughout this period, they share in common a
self-conscious strain of writing that has expanded the formal and
aesthetic possibilities of literature. In the diaspora, for example, the
works of Krikor Beledian and Marc Nichanian explore image-text relations
or the ways in which language, narrative, and visual representation
interact. In Armenia, an entire body of work that insists upon the
fluidity of literary genres has undone long-held assumptions about
poetry, prose, and drama. Taking these trends as a point of departure,
this conference seeks papers that address the ways in which contemporary
writers and thinkers have redefined the parameters of literature since 1991.

Thirty-five voices strong, the Armenian State Chamber Choir sings repertoire from the choral canon by Gabrielli, Bach, Brahms, and Schnittke, as well as contemporary works by Armenian composers that address the turbulent and often tragic history of the Armenian people.
The choir has recorded folk songs by the martyred priest and ethnomusicologist Komitas; and its recording on ECM of Tigran Mansurian’s Ars Poetica was praised for its superb ensemble cohesion and blend: “gorgeous, emotive, and very deeply felt a cappella choral music…fully the product of inspiration” (All Music Guide).

St. Vartan Armenian Apostolic Church at 650 Spruce St., Oakland, CA, 94610, United States

CONTACT

St. Vartan Choir

(510) 893-1671

The Armenian State Chamber Choir will join the Bay Area Armenian community at St. Vartan church and will sing the Divine Liturgy during the Sunday service. This will be an experience that no one would like to pass…